Khwai, Savuti, Chobe Botswana Safari: A Wind Storm Creates Magic …

We are in Savuti now – and this morning we headed straight to Marabou Pan where we saw lions with a kill last night. The lions were walking away from the pan when we found them, with a herd of elephants behind them all drinking from the water in the pan.

It is very hot and extremely dry here at the moment and we had the beautiful lions right next to the elephants in the background in the arid surroundings with lots of dust everywhere. We arrived as the sun was rising, which made the scene quite magical.

The fifteen lions moved about two hundred meters away to lie down under some shady trees as the sun brought the heat. There were a couple of huge males – one was trying to mate with one of the lionesses, but she wasn’t all that keen as yet. This gave us some fabulous images of the interaction between the two.

As the morning progressed a massive wind swept into the area, and being so dry, the resulting photographs were simply outstanding. A few lone bull elephants arrived at the water hole, and with the barren trees around, with the swirling dust storm, the scene that was created was beautiful beyond words.

In fact, we got out of our vehicles, and lay on our stomachs to make the most of the indescribable scene. It was so amazing that as I photographed the scene I kept thinking to myself that this would be the cover of our next book …

We spent the entire morning soaking up, enjoying, and photographing that wonderful sight.

This afternoon we headed directly back to Marabou Pan. The lions were still there – lying flat under the trees, and the waterhole was a mass of elephants. We did the same as this morning – flat on our stomachs again to photograph the now changing scene with the late afternoon light and later the setting sun suffusing the area with the most glorious colours.

We meandered slowly back to the Lodge – and suddenly a leopard came into view. She was sitting in the fork of a tree, and we stopped for some lovely shots as she first posed where she was and then moved back a bit before planning to leap onto another upright log – again with the arid, desert-like environment around her.

Back at the Lodge we all very euphoric after another very successful day of viewing and photography, and although it is really hot here, the conditions for photography are just outstanding!

Maybe, because it has been so successful, we should start the morning back at Marabou Pan …